(Bloomberg) -- Reports of safety incidents involving civilian drones have surged to an average of 250 a month, leading to a federal "emergency" action to approve drone flights in restricted areas, according to a government notice seeking new procedures for the craft.
There is so much pent-up demand for obtaining special permission to fly drones in restricted airspace, that the Federal Aviation Administration says it can’t keep up. The FAA says drone users are flying without approval because of the delays.
"The time necessary to process these requests has resulted in an increase in safety reports due to non-compliant operations," the agency said in its notice.
|Safety incidents up
Drone safety incidents are up compared to last year, according to FAA’s notice. Reports of drones flying improperly or getting too close to other aircraft are averaging 250 a month, this year, up by more than 50% from last year. They averaged 159 per month from February through September 2016, according to the FAA.
Recommended For You
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
